New Delhi: Tamil Nadu’s information technology minister, Dr. Palanivel Thiaga Rajan has said that the Election Commission of India’s management of the upcoming elections reveals its ‘grotesque,’ ‘abominable’ and ‘perverse’ incompetence.
In an interview with the channel Times Now, PTR – as the minister is better known – was asked as a follow-up question to one on the electoral bonds issue if he felt that the conduct of the State Bank of India and the Election Commission has come under question in recent times.
PTR said that the two were separate as the Election Commission was already playing a “one-sided game” – alluding to its support for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party – in many ways. But he added that the EC’s conduct has become blatant.
“The one-sided game is half the problem or three-quarters of the problem; grotesque incompetence is the remaining part of the problem,” he said.
He then asked as to how it was that the 2024 elections was taking longer than the 2004 one.
“[Take the] 2004 election. Do you know how long it took between the first phase and the last phase? Still 545 seats remain in the Parliament. In 2004, the technology that was available was less. The manpower mobilisation-capability was less. The budget allocated to the Election Commission was less. Do you know how long the entire Lok Sabha election took? Twenty days,” PTR said.
In that year, general elections were held in India in four phases between April 20 and May 10, 2004.
PTR compared that to the schedule set by the EC this time.
“Here we have a Lok Sabha election twenty years later that is announced on March 16th and is going to go to counting on June 4th. It is grotesque incompetence; it is abominable incompetence. Just think about it. To run one election, they need three months almost, between announcement and counting,” he said.
He asked how, under the circumstances, the Modi government can speak of conducting a single election for the Union, states and local bodies.
“And this is the same genius government that is talking about ‘One Nation, One Election’, running all the way from every local body and panchayat [to] corporation in every state and the country, all at the same time. If it takes three months for 545 seats, it will take one and a half years to run ‘One Nation, One Election’. [In that case] you don’t have to worry about different Model Codes of Conduct — you will be in elections for 1.5 years every 5 years! [It] is ridiculous,” he said.
PTR’s party, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, has also filed a writ petition with the Madras high court, questioning the design of the third-generation M3 electronic voting machines (EVMs) in which the voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) printers are placed between the balloting units and the control units with no direct connection between the two segments.
PTR also shed light on the fact that the Election Commission has allegedly stopped publishing full records of votes polled.
“The less we say about it, the better. They are perversely incompetent. They can’t even publish a Form 17 properly. You know what the Form 17 is —[it is a record of] the actual votes polled. Because people started showing the discrepancy between the Form 17 and the Form 20, they stopped publishing the Form 17 altogether,” he said.
He also said that the Election Commission has loosened every rule in the book.
“[Take] the kinds of Model Code of Conduct that apply to us. How is it that the Government of India is able to announce increases in the MGNREGA wages under the Model Code of Conduct? How is it that the Model Code of Conduct says that ministers in Tamil Nadu cannot use their vehicles or their flags but the Prime Minister is travelling around in a helicopter to do political campaigns? So, the less we say about the Election Commission, the better,” he said.
He added that the body is a “stain” on our democracy. “The Election Commission is a farce, and basically a hollow straw man,” he said.
Former bureaucrat E.A.S. Sarma recently wrote to the Election Commission in the light of the poll body giving permission to the Modi government to hike wage levels under the rural job scheme, noting that it is necessary for the commission to “impose restrictions” on the government regarding efforts to publicise it.
